Meet | Hannah Pilpel, Deliveroo

I have a confession.... I did slightly throw our guest in at the deep end this week. I caught up with Hannah Pilpel just as she was running to a Very Important Meeting. But, ever the professional, some probing questions about her career and thoughts on influencer marketing didn’t phase Deliveroo’s Organic Social Lead at all. It’s just another day at Britain’s biggest food startup.

Embracing the Unknown

First things first, Hannah doesn’t worry about not knowing what’s around the corner, in fact quite the opposite.

“Something that’s on my mind is what is the next new thing? I think that excites me. The landscape is ever evolving, there’s always something new to learn and it never really stops, and I think within that the opportunities available are endless.”

It’s clear that it’s her prerogative to identify new trends. Having studied traditional forms of advertising at University - print, TV, and radio - she quickly embraced emerging digital trends, her formal training in idea conception and creative thinking holding her in good stead.

Of course, not knowing what’s around the corner doesn’t mean not having processes in place. KPI’s are stringently measured “On Instagram the KPI is engagement percentage… Has the content we’ve commissioned performed the same or better than the creator’s normal content? If it has, that’s a success. If not, it’s a failure. On other channels with live (and trackable) links we also looks at CPAs.” Hannah is able to embrace the unknown and navigate an ever evolving digital landscape with a combination of logic and guts.

An Environment to Thrive

But, this isn’t Hannah’s first startup. Having been Social Project Manager at MADE.com for three years, she thrives in a fast-paced environment. But, her switch to Deliveroo took that one step further; “Deliveroo have been around for a shorter period of time, and were still very much in that startup phase”. And now, 9 months into her role at Deliveroo, they are in a period of rapid growth, expanding to new cities and working with new restaurants in order to deliver great quality food to people all over the world.

“Everyday is different, which is really exciting. It would be hard for me to describe one” she replies when I ask her what a typical day looks like. With varied agency and client experience, Hannah is now embracing the creative control client side at Deliveroo,

“you really get to know one brand, one company and very quickly what will and won’t work, because you’re just living and breathing it all the time.”

The Importance of Collaboration

Refreshingly, Hannah doesn’t label herself as a creative, she’d prefer to leave that to creators; “collaboration is key.” In order to get the best from a collaboration, I wondered what she thinks makes the perfect brief? “The content has got to fit with the creator’s visual aesthetic - you are working with them because their aesthetic appeals to the audience you want to tap into. This, alongside a clear campaign objective means you are likely to hit your KPIs.”

But alongside good quality content, Hannah also recognises the importance of the content’s positioning. Identifying a creator to collaborate with isn’t just about the content, it’s about reaching the right audiences. “It is worth thinking about the quality vs. the quantity of an influencer audience. "

"In this case I would always go for the quality of their audience over the quantity.”

Hannah’s advice to her younger self probably sounds like a familiar one to many of us. “Be braver. I could’ve trusted my instincts a little more. Take opportunities that come up because you learn more, even if you fail.”